May 17, 2013

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Scheduled to close in two years, Longfellow Elementary School could become the new home for DakotAbilities, a Sioux Falls nonprofit that provides housing services and job training for adults with developmental disabilities.

The nonprofit offered $650,000 for the school, which the Sioux Falls School District no longer will need because of a planned consolidation involving three elementary schools. If the school board approves the sale, DakotAbilities intends to renovate it soon after the 2014-15 school year ends and move in that fall.

Executive director Bob Bohm said the 97-year-old school will be a good fit for his organization, and he pledges to be a good neighbor to the residents nearby. DakotAbilities intends to install berms and trees along with expanded parking, while leaving the school playground in place for area children.

“We want to continue to be the kind of neighbor that Longfellow has been,” he said.

Other planned improvements include replacing windows and floors and installing an elevator and sprinkler system. In total, the nonprofit plans to invest $1.1 million into the site on top of the purchase price.

A facility study commissioned by the school district identified $4.2 million in improvements to keep Longfellow operating as a school. Bohm said that study was useful to DakotAbilities, but “some of those elements we won’t need.”

The school district held two open houses at Longfellow but received sealed bids from only two organizations before Friday’s deadline: DakotAbilities and El Riad Shrine, which offered $999.

Administrators will review the bids and make a recommendation to the school board, which will act to approve or reject the sale May 27 or June 10.

Low offer might be good enough

The district had not ordered an appraisal for Longfellow but they figured it might sell for $1.3 million, based on appraisals at Joe Foss and Jefferson schools. DakotAbilities offered half that.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Jeff Kreiter, operational services director for the district. “It’s been quite a few years since we disposed of some property, so it’s a hard number to know, and you have to have just the right usage that’s going to fit the zoning and the building.”

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At least four others expressed interest in Longfellow, most notably Sioux Falls Lutheran School, which opted instead to build a new school at an undetermined location. Steve Jastram, an architect and board member for Sioux Falls Lutheran, said their bid for Longfellow would have fallen a bit short of the DakotAbilities offer.

Others that showed an interest were Avera McKennan Hospital, Case School of Music, and First Priority of Sioux Falls, a youth ministry.

The school consolidation will close Longfellow and Jefferson and replace Mark Twain with a new, larger elementary school on the same site in 2015. Kate Parker, a school board member who lives near Longfellow, cast the lone vote against the plan last November.

“I’m still disappointed that we’re not using that building for our own purposes,” she said, but she’s glad another group has an interest in using it. “I’d hate to see the building go, so if another organization can come in and use it, I think that’s great.”

Amount of bid
'a disappointment'

Parker said the $650,000 offer was disappointing, however.

“Considering we haven’t had any other offers on the building, much like real estate, I guess, you take what you can get. But having it be less than what we’d hoped, obviously, that’s a disappointment,” she said.

Board president Doug Morrison felt better about the offer.

“We’re happy,” he said. “We were just hoping that it got repurposed into something that can be useful to the community, and certainly DakotAbilities has been a good partner and serves a good mission.”

DakotAbilities serves about 130 developmentally disabled adults in two locations near 43rd Street and Duluth Avenue. They’ve grown in recent years and have spent the past year searching for a larger home.

Longfellow would allow the nonprofit to consolidate the two sites. The school would hold administrative offices and program space for art, contract work and job training.

Their higher-functioning clients spend much of their days working in the community at such locations as City Hall, the county administration building and Citibank.

If the school board approves the sale, Bohm said he intends to invite residents who live near Longfellow to a meeting at DakotAbilities to learn about their plans.